


Drinking From Storm Puddles

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demiromantic Character, F/F, Femslash, Hunters & Hunting, Post-Hunt, Trans Character, Wayward Daughters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:03:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their first hunt alone together doesn't go the way Claire expects, but that turns out to be a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drinking From Storm Puddles

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentines, lisa! i know this doesn't follow either of the prompts you provided, but i had trouble finishing a fic of either prompt on time. i hope you enjoy this nonetheless (:
> 
> title from ane brun's common bird
> 
> warning for emetophobia, menstruation mentions, and mild depictions of gore

The stench of feces and rotting flesh pervades the air. Not that one would expect a skinwalker's sewer den to smell like a basket of roses, but Claire can't believe the stench is so bad. Bile rises up her throat on several occasions, but she refrains from vomiting. She can't let her defenses down, and she can't deal with the post-vomit shakiness and cold fever when the bad guy can pop up any moment. If she thought this hunt would be as horrible as it is, she wouldn't have agreed to come along.

Well, no, she probably would have. But less enthusiastically.

Pausing just a moment to temper another roll of her stomach, she holds the back of her hand to her mouth. The flashlight in her hand deviates from the path, making Alex turn around.

"You okay?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Claire doesn't say anything; instead, she shoulders in front of Alex and does her best not to betray just how much she hates this.

When Claire first came to Jody's, Alex was not impressed. Claire is used to having to prove herself to everyone, but this urge she has to do so is different in a way she can't quite put her finger on. And now that they're hunting together, Claire's never felt the pressure more. She can do this just as well as any other hunter can. She can do _better_.

She squares her shoulders and breathes through her mouth. The weight of the gun in her hand still feels weird, but it comforts her to know she can take down any threat. She won't have to feel powerless anymore.

"I think that's it," Alex murmurs. Claire turns to look at her, and Alex jerks her chin forward.

Claire doesn't see anything at first, but as Alex roves her flashlight beam around, she notices the rat traps littering the ground, and further on is a chair.

"Great real estate," Claire says. "The extra grime on the wall really makes the place."

Alex laughs once under her breath. "Walker Texas Ranger probably wouldn't mind a neighbor."

"Ew, gross." Claire wrinkles her nose. "Seriously, if I was a skinwalker, I'd become one of those cremators. Just put my skin in the oven and whoosh."

"But then how would you explain changing faces all the time?" Alex says. Claire thinks for a moment, then realizes she's right. "There's a reason they like sewers."

"And here I thought it was the homey feel." She grimaces. "Are we really just going to hang out here until it comes back?"

"How else would we find it? We don't know what it looks like."

Claire grimaces again. Her face floods with warmth. She really has to think about her words before she speaks. Alex already looks down on her for lack of experience.

The awkward silence thankfully doesn't last long. The sound of a voice groans from the direction Alex and Claire had come from, and heavy, slapping footsteps follow. Alex and Claire exchange a glance, and with reciprocal nods, they turn off their flashlights and slowly pad toward the sounds, guns raised.

No one ever told Claire that holding a gun with her arms extended would be such a strain on her muscles. It's a deceptively heavy object, and she's never had much upper body strength to begin with. She bites her cheek to distract herself from her aching arms. She breathes as evenly and quietly as possible.

A shadow appears on the sloping wall, long and disfigured. Something falls off the figure and to the ground with a disgusting slop.

Just a couple more steps.

The urge to vomit overwhelms Claire, and she spills chunks everywhere.

"Shit," Alex mutters as the skinwalker, alerted to their presence, runs away. Claire waves for Alex to follow them without her, and the next thing she knows she's alone, on her knees and dry heaving.

She breaks into a cold sweat. Her mind doesn't even register that her palms are smearing filth. She's shaking and pale, and she feels a tremble of fear that she could die here in this fucking sewer.

A gunshot fires off down the tunnel, and a terrifying scream echoes shortly after. Claire grimaces and tries to hide herself from the danger, even though hiding her head in her elbows is shitty defense.

She doesn't know how long she kneels there and continues to retch before Alex returns, covered in skinwalker, though Claire thinks she probably looks the same now. Alex puts a hand on Claire's shoulder.

"Done?" Claire asks, gasping for breath.

"Yeah." Alex puts her hand in Claire's armpit and wraps her arm behind her. With a groan of effort, Alex hefts Claire onto her feet. Claire's head spins, and she feels like she could throw up again. Her teeth taste like stomach acid. "You okay?"

Shit, no. Their first hunt together, and Claire couldn't even perform. Fuck.

Leaning heavily against Alex, Claire nods. "Yeah." She'll have to be.

+

The first thing Claire does when they return to their motel room is lock herself in the washroom. She turns the shower on as hot as it can go - which'll probably only get to lukewarm. As it sputters to life, she squirts an inch of toothpaste onto her brush and scrubs her mouth like her life depends on it. After two minutes, during which she also undresses herself, she can still taste the vomit in her mouth, mingling with the peppermint. She spits into the sink, puts her toothbrush away, and steps into the shower.

She didn't realize how tense her muscles were until the water relaxes them. Her shoulders unknot, cell by cell, and she breathes out every ounce of air in her lungs until she feels the pressure to breathe in again.

Hunting isn't glamorous, not by a long shot. Getting into it, Claire never thought it would be kittens and sock puppets all the time, but she never quite imagined it would be so gross and exhausting either. All of the warnings that Sam, Dean, Cas, Jody, Alex, and Garth gave her hadn't prepared her for evil sewer monsters.

Blood circles down the drain, diluted and rusty. Though she did her best to pick off all of the skin scraps as she and Alex exited the sewer, and though the storm raging outside helped some, even more gore sloughs off from her body, clogging up the drain. Soon, she's standing in water rather than on it, but she so does not want to touch that gross shit anymore. She uses the bottom of a conditioner bottle to move the skin scraps away from the drain, up the sides of the tub, and onto a small ledge. She should probably move it from the shower to the wastebasket, but that can wait until its dried out and hopefully become less gross.

The water drains properly again, so she moves onto actually getting herself clean. She forgot to grab her toiletries from the vanity, and she doesn't care enough to drag her ass back out of the shower for them. She settles for using the motel's cheap stuff. The shampoo smells like baby powder, but at least it's effective against the blood in her hair.

She takes much longer in the shower than she really should, and as a consequence her fingers wrinkle up. Other than some everpresent blood and dirt beneath her fingernails, she feels successfully clean. Much cleaner than she would have expected after an evening in the sewer. She turns the water off and towels herself dry. The towel smells like dust, but after the day she's had, it might as well be a basket of roses.

Not wanting to redress in her dirty clothes, Claire wraps the towel around herself, tucking it in place in her armpits. Alex does give two shits about modesty, but Claire does, for obvious reasons. She tucks her wet hair behind her ear, bites the inside of her lips, and opens the door.

Alex is leaning against the table by the window, her phone pressed to her ear. When she catches Claire's eyes, one corner of her mouth lifts up. She asks the person on the other end of the phone to hold on, then lowers the mouthpiece to press against her breast.

"How hungry are you?"

Claire shrugs. Between the sewer, the gore, her vomiting, and the fact that she hasn't eaten since lunch, she's not really sure where she stands on the whole wanting food thing.

Alex doesn't press her. She shrugs in return, then returns to the phone. "And a Hawaiian. Small."

Claire's cheeks bloom with a blush, though she's not sure why. Yeah, Hawaiian might be kind of a childish pizza, especially to a woman who eats jalapeños without a blink, but is it really worth getting all self conscious and embarrassed over?

As Alex talks a little bit more with the pizza place - and by the way, what fucking pizza place takes orders at the crack of dawn? - Claire rummages through her duffle for clothes. Then she realizes she doesn't know what their plans are, so she waits until Alex hangs up. Goosebumps grow on her legs and her arms.

"We crashing here for the rest of the night? Or day, whatever?"

Alex shrugs. "If we want to. It's ours until noon tomorrow, at least."

Claire glances at the clock on the cable box. It's five forty in the morning. "Sounds good." She grabs clothes she can sleep in but can also go out in: a graphic tee and loose shorts. She puts them on in the bathroom, and when she reemerges, she feels better than she has in ages: clean, comfy, and refreshed.

With a yawn and a mighty stretch, Claire pads over to her bed. Alex hands her a twenty to pay the pizza guy when he arrives, then takes her sweet time in the bathroom, even though Claire is pretty sure she stole all of the hot water. Claire passes the time going through the motel's offered twenty two channels, but as it's the ass crack of dawn, the only interesting thing on is the news. She wonders how long it'll take for the news people to drop the fanatical storyline blaming a cult created in the back of a fast food joint for the rash of unexplained behavior in and subsequent disappearance of otherwise normal human beings. She wonders how long it'll take the authorities to push the case back into the cold case files, the X files. With a snort, Claire changed the channel to a different news station. The other one with its maniacally upbeat team is getting on her nerves.

A few minutes into the weather report, Alex comes out of the bathroom, followed by a billow of steam.

"We need to make a supply run," Alex says plainly. Claire flops an arm over her forehead.

"What's that?"

"We need tampons. I didn't realize we were so low," Alex explains. Claire smiles thinly at her but says nothing. "What brand do you prefer? I'll pick you up some too."

"Oh. Um." Claire sits up. Her eyebrows furrow with confusion. She thought Alex knew. "I don't need them."

"Pads then?" Alex asks.

"Alex," Claire says. "I thought you knew I was trans."

"Trans?" Now it's Alex's turn to look confused, but it only lasts a moment before her expression morphs into dismay. A furious blush spreads over her cheeks. "Shit, Claire, I'm sorry."

Claire smiles up at Alex and thinks now would be a good time to lay her hand on Alex's shoulder, but Alex is too far away. "It's okay. Just... do your thing. Buy your shit."

"Okay." With the blush slowly fading from her cheeks, Alex pushes her hair out of her face. "Need anything from the store?"

Claire shakes her head. "I'm good. Have a fun trip."

Rolling her eyes, Alex finishes, "See you next fall." She plants a kiss on the crown of Claire's head. Claire closes her eyes for a moment, and the kiss lasts much longer than it usually does. Alex is still apologizing.

"Don't be fucking weird about it," Claire says, pushing Alex away. She gives Alex a stern look, and Alex sheepishly loos away.

"Sorry. I just-"

Alex takes a deep breath and keeps her eyes pointed beyond Claire. Then, she stretches her mouth into a halfhearted mockery of a smile and crosses her arms over her chest.

"I'm still trying to figure you out, okay? Sorry."

"What is there to figure out?" She looks at Alex confusedly.

"Well, I've never felt this way towards anyone before. I thought, you know, that the vamps damaged me or something."

Sympathy softens Claire's expression, and she thinks she understands. She understands what Alex is trying to say, and she understands the strange way Alex makes her feel that she'd been struggling to comprehend.

"And I thought, because we're supposed to be sisters, or whatever." Scuffing her toes against the carpet, Alex keeps her head down. "That maybe this was a sibling-y feeling. But... I don't know. So. Still trying to figure you out."

Alex still isn't looking at her. Claire kneels up on her knees so she can meet Alex's eyes and her mouth evenly.

"You don't have to think too hard," Claire whispers before fitting their mouths together. Alex sighs and opens her mouth, but Claire doesn't take the invitation to deepen the kiss.

Claire wrinkles her nose. "I still taste like vomit."

Alex's expression matches hers. "Yeah, not..."

"Not tasty," Claire finishes, and Alex grins.

Just then, someone knocks on the door. It's their pizza. Claire meets the delivery person at the entrance, exchanges their money for their meal, and turns back around to see Alex laying in her bed. Claire's bed.

"Nothing good on TV?" she guesses, fiddling with the channel buttons on the remote.

Claire carries the pizza to the bed and sets it in front of her crossed legs. She lifts up a slice of Hawaiian and chews it even as she responds, "Nah."

"Heard of anything interesting on the news?"

Claire opens Alex's pizza box; she'd ordered a buffalo chicken for herself. "Nope. Here."

They lean against each other's shoulders and eventually, with full stomachs and warm cheeks, fall asleep together, completely disregarding the second bed that they'd paid for.


End file.
